“A Leave”—A father’s ten days at home test conviction, family, and the true cost of work
Introduction
The first time I watched A Leave, I felt that familiar knot in my throat—the one that arrives when a small, ordinary moment tilts a whole life. A father comes home for ten days, and in those ten days he tries to be everything: provider, repairman, cook, conscience. Have you ever wanted to make up for lost time so badly that every conversation tastes like apology? I could see my own kitchen in his, the hurry of boiling water, the stubborn hope in a neatly packed lunchbox, the fear that love alone can’t cover the bills. As of March 11, 2026, this film isn’t on Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Viki, or Kocowa in the U.S.—but it does surface on Netflix in select regions, a reminder that availability shifts even when stories like this should be within everyone’s reach.
Overview
Title: A Leave (휴가)
Year: 2020.
Genre: Drama, Social/Family
Main Cast: Lee Bong‑ha; Kim Ah‑seok; Shin Woon‑seop; Kim Jung‑yeon.
Runtime: 81 minutes.
Streaming Platform: Not currently on Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Viki, or Kocowa.
Director: Lee Ran‑hee.
Overall Story
Jae‑bok has been protesting his dismissal for years, a fixture at a labor encampment that outlasts seasons and headlines. After a final, crushing legal defeat, he and his colleagues agree to step away briefly, and he returns home for a ten‑day “leave” that’s supposed to be rest but feels like a test of everything he’s sacrificed. His apartment is quiet and slightly disordered—signs that his daughters have been fending for themselves and that absence lingers in corners more stubborn than dust. He moves through the rooms like a caretaker, fixing a clogged drain, wiping fans, simmering soup, as if repairing objects might patch old hurts. The film places us inside that restlessness—have you ever come home and tried to prove, in chores and gentle words, that you still belong? A Leave won the Feature Grand Prize at the Seoul Independent Film Festival, and you feel that independent spirit in every patient, lived‑in scene.
By morning, the math of family life arrives: the eldest daughter needs a college tuition deposit; the younger wants a long winter puffer coat that everyone at school seems to have. Jae‑bok counts what little he has and what he might borrow, the way any parent juggles dignity and debt. The film never turns preachy; instead, it lets a father’s anxiety sit beside the kettle as it hisses. Have you ever stared at a price tag and felt it weigh exactly as much as your pride? In this home, love is fluent, but money—like time—is always running short. The pressure is rendered with heartbreaking simplicity, right down to the wish for that warm, padded coat.
He finds a part‑time job at a friend’s small carpentry workshop, a place where sawdust floats like winter light and the work is honest, heavy, and underpaid. There he’s paired with a much younger coworker who eats instant noodles on the curb at lunch, a kid who rolls his eyes at union talk because survival has made him pragmatic. Jae‑bok brings home‑cooked meals and a stubborn gentleness, nudging the boy toward better food and, quietly, toward self‑respect. Have you ever tried to parent someone who isn’t yours because you recognize the hunger you once knew? Their bond grows in small exchanges—the kind that make you exhale and think, maybe this is what change really looks like.
At home, the truce with his daughters frays and mends in waves. The older one tracks forms and deadlines, careful not to ask for what she knows might hurt; the younger one tests boundaries with ordinary teenage longing. Their mother keeps practical score—rent, utilities, health insurance premiums—and her glances reveal a ledger of disappointments she’s too tired to itemize. The conversations are short, but their silences are long; if you’ve ever measured love in chores instead of sentences, you’ll feel their language. Jae‑bok cooks, cleans, and listens, each act a promise that he can be both the man on the protest line and the one at the dinner table. The film watches, not judging, as he tries to hold those two selves together.
One afternoon, the workshop hum breaks—there’s an accident. It’s not sensationalized; it’s the sort of workplace injury that happens when corners are cut and paperwork is vague by design. The boss hedges on responsibility, murmuring about costs and timing, and the young coworker, terrified of losing the job, suggests they “let it go.” Jae‑bok’s two worlds collide: the activist who has shouted for fair treatment and the father‑figure who doesn’t want this kid to bleed for a paycheck. Have you ever felt rage arrive so fast it made you gentle, because you were choosing words that might protect someone else? The question of who pays—an employer, workers’ compensation insurance, or a frightened teenager—becomes the moral fulcrum of the film.
Back at home that night, dinner is both ordinary and impossible. The girls pick at side dishes while school group chats light up their phones; the mother calculates whether the tuition deposit can stretch if they delay another bill. Jae‑bok tries to make it all taste like reassurance, but the truth is that student loan interest rates, bus fares, and rising grocery costs aren’t problems you can stir down with a ladle. The younger one brings up the coat again; the older one says “it’s fine” in a voice that’s learned how to swallow a wish. Have you ever wanted to buy something small and warm just to prove life will still be kind? The scene ends with dishes washed, hope deferred, and a family that keeps trying anyway.
The next day, Jae‑bok returns to the workshop with a plan—to insist on a report, to follow the channels that should protect the injured. It’s a small act of civil courage, and the film treats it as such: not a speech, but a visit to an office, a form filled, a quiet refusal to pretend nothing happened. The younger coworker watches, divided between gratitude and fear; the boss watches, calculating what can be denied. A Leave keeps its camera low, near their hands and eyes, where the stakes are immediate. Have you ever learned that doing the right thing is not about winning, but about teaching someone beside you how not to be afraid? That lesson becomes the closest thing the film has to triumph.
As the ten days near their end, Jae‑bok slips back into the rhythms of protest—phone calls from comrades, updates about strategy, the muscle memory of folding leaflets. He buys groceries, leaves envelopes on the table, and writes down phone numbers for the girls “just in case.” His wife, careful and unsentimental, doesn’t plead with him to stay; she asks for clarity instead. The film honors that ask, refusing to reduce a woman’s endurance to background music. If love is a verb, this family conjugates it in future tense: we will call, we will cook, we will try.
The final morning arrives with gray light and a decision that doesn’t look like one: he picks up his bag and steps out. The apartment behind him is neat again; the girls are at school; the kettle is cold. He’s not a hero and not a failure—he’s a man who has chosen to carry two lives at once, knowing both will keep slipping. Have you ever walked back into the weather because that’s where your promise lives? A Leave doesn’t fix anything; it simply tells the truth about how people keep each other warm when the world refuses to.
Even after the credits, the film’s political marrow hums—the kind of marrow that remembers mass demonstrations and daily pickets and the unglamorous, necessary work of showing up. It’s no accident that the movie found recognition at festivals devoted to independent voices, where stories about labor aren’t footnotes but headlines. And it’s no accident that the scenes you remember are intimate ones—a bowl of rice passed across a table, a borrowed jacket, a father’s hands smelling faintly of wood glue. Have you ever realized that the biggest choices in your life were made in rooms no one else will see? That’s the gentle audacity of A Leave: it asks us to sit in those rooms and listen.
Highlight Scenes / Unforgettable Moments
The Quiet Homecoming: Jae‑bok’s first night back is a symphony of small repairs—he unclogs a drain, dusts fan blades, and cooks a simple meal. The camera lingers on his hands, letting us feel how love can be practical, almost ceremonial. The girls watch from doorways, unsure how to accept the help they needed yesterday and might resent tomorrow. Have you ever apologized with a sponge instead of an “I’m sorry”? It’s a scene that says more about parenthood than any speech.
The Puffer Coat: Over breakfast, the younger daughter brings up the padded winter coat “everyone has.” It’s such an ordinary ask that it hurts; the request lands like a pebble in water, ripples of silence widening around the table. The film doesn’t judge her—it lets us feel how warmth and belonging share the same zipper. This moment threads the family plot to the economy outside their door, where brand names and school hallways become pressure cookers. I could feel my own teenage self in her careful, hopeful voice.
Lunch on the Curb: At the carpentry workshop, Jae‑bok finds his young coworker slurping instant noodles beside a convenience store. He offers part of his own home‑packed lunch, equal parts nourishment and invitation. The kid accepts, slightly embarrassed, and in that exchange a mentorship begins—one rooted in food, not slogans. Have you ever realized that the kindest revolutions start with a shared meal? The scene is so tender it sneaks past your defenses.
The Accident: A small misstep, a brief cry, the sound of tools gone quiet—then the politics of responsibility unfold in low voices. The boss implies that medical costs are “complicated,” the coworker wants to keep his head down, and Jae‑bok’s face tightens with a calm, dangerous resolve. This is where the film’s social spine shows: safety isn’t a favor; it’s a right. It’s also where the idea of workers’ compensation insurance stops being a line item and becomes a lifeline. Have you ever watched someone decide, right in front of you, to stop being afraid?
The Fraught Family Dinner: This household doesn’t do big blowups; it does careful sentences and sidelong glances. The girls talk school; the mother checks dates and due amounts; Jae‑bok keeps serving food as if generosity could outpace arithmetic. It’s the kind of scene where you hear every utensil touch the plate because no one wants to clang the truth. And yet, beneath it all, a stubborn love breathes—refusing to harden into resentment. I thought of every family that has ever survived on leftovers and patience.
The Last Walk: On the final morning, Jae‑bok closes the door behind him and heads back to the protest line. There’s no music swell, no speech—just footsteps and weather. The film trusts you to understand what it costs to leave a warm kitchen for cold asphalt. Have you ever returned to the hard thing because to do otherwise would betray the person beside you? It’s the gentlest, braver kind of ending.
Memorable Lines
“Eat properly.” – Jae‑bok, tucking lunch into a coworker’s hands (paraphrased) A simple sentence becomes the film’s heartbeat, a father’s love translated into calories and care. In Korean, such reminders carry layers of affection, duty, and quiet apology; the scene makes that subtext plain without spelling it out. It also signals how Jae‑bok’s paternal energy redirects toward the younger man who will actually receive it. That shift deepens both their arcs, showing how chosen family can bloom in a workshop doorway.
“It’s only ten days.” – Jae‑bok, promising he can fix what time has frayed (paraphrased) He says it like a shield, as if brevity will spare everyone pain. But you can hear the ache beneath the math—ten days for years of absence will never balance. The line frames every scene with a ticking clock, turning errands into acts of devotion. It’s why even a trip to the market feels like a vow he’s racing to keep.
“If we don’t report it, it will happen again.” – Jae‑bok, after the workshop accident (paraphrased) This is where conviction stops being abstract and becomes policy, paperwork, consequence. The younger coworker’s fear is real; so is Jae‑bok’s memory of what silence costs. Their exchange turns a one‑off injury into a map of a system that prefers not to document its harm. In that moment, the film links a young man’s future to the courage of a tired father.
“I was fired, not finished.” – Jae‑bok, refusing to accept erasure (paraphrased) Whether said aloud or implied in his actions, this sentiment explains everything—why he protests, why he cooks, why he shows up at the workshop with dignity intact. The line reframes defeat as identity work: losing a case doesn’t mean losing a self. It also speaks to anyone who’s ever had to rebuild pride one small task at a time. You feel the difference between humiliation and humility in how he carries himself.
“A coat won’t fix everything… but it helps.” – The mother, weighing warmth against the budget (paraphrased) The sentence lands like a sigh we’ve all exhaled. It acknowledges a household ledger where health insurance premiums, tuition deposits, and bus cards edge out sweetness. Yet it also honors the truth that dignity often comes in zippers and sleeves. This is a film wise enough to say: sometimes love looks like paying for what makes winter bearable.
Why It's Special
There’s a quiet kind of courage in A Leave, the story of a middle-aged labor activist who steps away—just for a moment—from years of protest to face the home he’s neglected and the work he still needs to find. If you’re planning a movie night, here’s where to watch as of March 11, 2026: A Leave is streaming on Netflix in select regions (including Taiwan). In the U.S., it’s not on a major platform right now, but it has screened via SFFILM’s virtual festival window and is available on DVD through Korean retailers, so check local libraries or import options if you’re stateside. Have you ever felt this way—caught between duty and the people you love? That’s the ache this film renders so well.
A Leave unfolds like a remembered day, unhurried and intimate. After years spent on the streets protesting layoffs, Jae-bok returns to daughters who aren’t sure they want him back and stumbles into a chance to earn again. The premise is simple; the emotions are not, and the film makes room for contradictions rather than flattening them into slogans.
Written and directed by Lee Ran-hee, the film runs a lean 82 minutes and feels handcrafted—precise cuts, silences that hum, and cinematography by Noh Sin-ung that observes rather than insists. What you remember afterward isn’t a speech but a glance, a hallway, a breath between sentences.
Performance is the film’s heartbeat. You feel the weight that Jae-bok carries in the way he lowers his shoulders before opening a door, and in the awkward tenderness that creeps back into his voice when he tries to parent. The compassionate writing lets him be both principled and stubborn, both inspiring and infuriating—very much like people we know.
What genre is A Leave? It’s a social-issue drama, yes, but it’s also a family portrait and a workplace study, the kind that understands how a single paycheck can shift the mood of a home. Critics in Busan praised the film’s empathy and subtlety, precisely because it avoids didactic beats and finds drama in everyday negotiations.
Again and again, director Lee favors modest gestures over melodrama: a shared meal at a workshop table, a pause before telling hard news, a hand steadying a ladder. The film’s human-rights festival Q&As noted how its final images lean toward solidarity, suggesting that small acts might still bend the day toward dignity.
If you’ve ever balanced conviction with caregiving—or wondered how to return from a long absence and be forgiven—A Leave will feel piercingly familiar. It’s less a message than a mirror: the kind that asks, gently, what kind of life you want when the chanting stops.
Popularity & Reception
A Leave premiered in the New Currents lineup at the 2020 Busan International Film Festival, where it drew attention as a rare, tender look at working-class life. Its North American premiere followed at the SFFILM Festival, which opened the door for U.S.-based cinephiles to discover it online during a limited festival window.
The film’s festival life was decorated with meaningful recognition: it won the Grand Prize at the Seoul Independent Film Festival (SIFF) 2020, earned the top Dreaming Peace Prize at the Busan Peace Film Festival, and received a Special Mention for the Golden Gate New Directors Award at the 64th SFFILM Festival. Those accolades underline how warmly programmers and juries received its compassionate gaze.
Critics responded in kind. Modern Korean Cinema praised A Leave as a “compelling and complex character study,” while Senses of Cinema singled it out as one of the best Korean films at Busan that year—commendations that helped the movie build a dedicated word-of-mouth following among global festival-goers.
From Asia to Europe, the film kept traveling—screening at the Aichi International Women’s Film Festival in Japan and at the Asian Film Festival Barcelona—where audiences resonated with its portrait of precarious labor and estranged love. These stops expanded its conversation beyond Korea, affirming how universal its conflicts feel.
When it landed on Netflix in select Asian territories, accessibility widened and online discussions multiplied. In the U.S., interest surged through festival streams and campus screenings; many viewers discovered it precisely because friends abroad recommended this “quiet protest” of a movie. If you’ve ever relied on trusted recommendations more than hype, you’ll understand why this one keeps finding people.
Cast & Fun Facts
Lee Bong-ha anchors the film as Jae-bok, a laid-off worker who has spent years in street protests and now tries to rebuild a home life that moved on without him. A veteran of the stage, Lee brings grounded physical detail to every scene: the way he measures his words with his daughters, the uneasy camaraderie with men who think he should have given up by now. It’s a performance you feel in your chest more than your head.
What’s striking about Lee Bong-ha is how completely he resists grandstanding. As Jae-bok, he lets silence do the heavy lifting; when he finally chooses, the choice feels lived-in, not written. That restraint keeps the film’s moral questions open, inviting us to wrestle with them alongside him.
Kim Ah-seok plays Jun-yeong, the younger co-worker who enters Jae-bok’s orbit at a small furniture workshop. At first, he seems to inhabit a different world—less politicized, more focused on getting through the week—yet Kim shades him with curiosity and decency, never a mere foil.
Across their scenes, Kim Ah-seok traces a subtle generational dialogue: what does solidarity mean to someone who didn’t live the same battles? The film’s festival notes emphasize how this relationship—mentor, friend, sometimes adversary—becomes a bridge back to ordinary life for Jae-bok, and Kim makes that bridge believable.
Shin Woon-seop is Woo-jin, the friend-turned-boss whose choices test both loyalty and safety. He embodies the uncomfortable space where small-business survival collides with worker protection, and his scenes with Jae-bok pulse with the kind of disagreement that only long-time friends can have.
A behind-the-scenes note makes Shin Woon-seop’s contribution even more interesting: beyond acting, he’s credited as both producer and executive producer on the film. That dual role may help explain the workshop’s lived-in authenticity—the sense that these characters know not only each other, but also the feel of the tools in their hands.
Kim Jeong-yeon appears as Hyun-hee, bringing texture to the home front where pride, hurt, and hope tangle together. Her presence complicates the story’s emotional math: forgiveness here isn’t instant, but it isn’t impossible either.
Watch how Kim Jeong-yeon lets guardedness thaw, then harden again, across a single exchange. Those micro-shifts make the family scenes feel startlingly true, the kind that may remind you of conversations you’ve put off—and why you put them off in the first place.
The guiding hand is writer-director Lee Ran-hee, whose earlier shorts (A Perm, A Night before the Wedding) showcased her sensitivity to everyday rhythms. For A Leave, she’s spoken about focusing on modest, human stakes instead of spectacle, a choice reflected in the film’s careful editing and observational camerawork. It’s the rare debut that trusts the audience to lean in.
Conclusion / Warm Reminders
If your heart is drawn to stories about ordinary people doing something extraordinary—like showing up again—A Leave belongs on your watchlist. Consider where it’s available near you, compare options on your preferred best streaming service, and, if needed, keep an eye on festival calendars or movie streaming plans that spotlight independent cinema. Have you ever needed a film that listens before it speaks? This one does—and it lingers beautifully on a quiet night with your home theater system.
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